The Moaning Tower
by xFoxStrandx
Summary: Agent Fox Mulder and Dr. Richard Strand (from the podcast The Black Tapes) investigate an already-debunked case in New York's financial district and end up at a bar.


A drabble about the investigatory team of Fox Mulder and Dr. Richard Strand, with this case prompt: io9 dot gizmodo dot com/why-is-nycs-freedom-tower-making-this-moaning-noise-1476452243

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Dr. Strand relented. "Well, at least this place has a decent vodka gimlet."

Mulder relaxed. They were in the financial district, where he had insisted they had a case to solve immediately. Dr. Strand, being uncharacteristically spontaneous today, had allowed himself to be carried along by Mulder's sleuthful enthusiasm, but then had promptly debunked the theory with a google search when they'd emerged from the subway station.

Now they sat in the low burnished glow of P.J. Clarke's, an hundred-year-old bar if it were a day, as Strand explained, in that rough, resonant voice, how EVP phenonmena were actually created.

Mulder pretended to sip at his own gin and tonic, and pretended to be listening to the actual content of Dr. Strand's deep murmur, but kept finding his eyes lingering on the doctor's lips, and imagining himself falling into his voice, like drifting downward into the ocean.

"...and that's how I learned to fold space using forbidden mathematics," Dr. Strand concludes.

Mulder jumps, shaking the table and hitting his knee painfully. "What?" He must have lost track.

"What did you just say?" He asks, rubbing his knee with a grimace.

When he looks back up, Strand is still, his eyes waiting to meet his, a cat's grin on his face.

"I knew you weren't listening, Fox. What ever were you thinking about?"

"Oh boy," Mulder thinks to himself.

"Oh boy." Strand parrots, managing to look both bored and amused at the same time. Mulder freezes, eyes wide.

"How did you - did you just read my thoughts?!"

"Now, now, Fox," begins Strand, leaning forward across the table, one hand tucked under his chin. "That is not a reasonable conclusion to jump to." Mulder stifles a grimace, an old reflex to being called unreasonable.

"But - !"

Strand waves his free hand dismissively, cutting Mulder off. Mulder feigns indignation, but in reality this feeling is being quickly overcome by the warm, pleasant pressure of Dr. Strand's undivided attention. Which, if he's being honest with himself these days, is something he really likes. It's why he finds himself acting just a little more reckless around the doctor, a little more noticeable.

"In order for that to be a reasonable conclusion, I would have to possess telepathic powers, powers that have never been scientifically proven to exist." Strand continues moving closer, until Mulder can feel the faint warmth of every measured word on his cheeks. Mulder could no longer distinguish between the caress of Strand's breath and his own growing flush as their faces grew nearer.

"Perhaps a more reasonable conclusion would be that I saw the look in your eye and extrapolated." Strand grows silent, remaining inches away from Mulder's face.

"You do say that phrase around me with some frequency." Suddenly, he lets out an easy chuckle and draws back, arms crossed, eyes glinting.

Mulder feels like he is moving underwater, like his tongue is too large for his mouth. He grips his now-warm drink tightly to prevent his hands from reaching out for the doctor, or even worse, to adjust his increasingly warm and rigid cock under the table. He's out-of-sorts, but even as he is drawn deeper into Strand's spell he recognizes this is what he wanted. This feeling is why he called Strand in the first place.

"Dr. Strand-" he begins, and then is shocked back to reality by the sharp sound of his cell phone ringing. Eyes still wide, brain struggling to process the moments that came a few moments before, he fumbles for his phone and tears his eyes away from Strand's to read the caller ID. Dana Scully.

"Mulder, it's me." She says once Mulder answers.

"Scul-Scully? I can't talk, I'm, uh..I'm busy!" Scully ignores his stutters and declares, "Mulder, you have to get over here RIGHT NOW. We've got a confirmed specimen of a live Montauk Monster, but the local police department is on its way over to confiscate it. Get here as fast as you can!"

Mulder pauses and stares at Strand, who is still reclined and waiting, a slight smile pulling at the side of his lips.

"Is there...is there any way this can wait for just a-"

"MULDER" Scully screams, reproachfully.

"Ok! Ok, I'll be right there."

Mulder hangs up and begins gathering his coat and bag, trying his damnedest not to make eye contact with Strand.

"Leaving so soon?" Mulder does not need to look up to know that Strand is smiling.

He checks his phone, struggling to regain a shred of composure. "Yeah, Scully just got a big break in the case we've been working on." He still doesn't look up. He knows what those eyes will do to him right now.

Jacket on, he stands up and somehow leaves the bar and catches a cab in the street and tells the driver to go to Jersey and texts Dana that he's on the way and then somewhere in there remembers to breathe.

Mulder is stumped. As easily as theories appear to him in his work, he has nothing even close to a working model for what Strand does to him. It's simpler, he supposes, when it's aliens, or far-reaching government conspiracies, or genetically-modified corn that gives bees the ability to inject alien DNA into humans as part of a far-reaching government conspiracy.

Strand has to know what he's doing to him. He must like it, or he wouldn't keep doing it. Getting under Mulder's skin as easily as Scully making an autopsy incision.

He's just so damn collected!

Fox looks out over the bridge from the city and smiles as an idea strikes him. He's just going to have to take the good doctor by surprise, then, and see what happens when Mulder is the collected one and Strand's firm and steady composure breaks.

It's going to be delicious, he thinks, to see Strand get ruffled, and even more so to plan it. He's got some ideas already.


End file.
